SEOUL: South Korea’s foreign ministry on Thursday raised the terrorism alert level for five diplomatic offices in the region. The move comes amid concerns that North Korea may be planning to harm South Korean officials.
The affected diplomatic locations include Seoul’s embassies in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, as well as consulates in Vladivostok, Russia, and Shenyang, China, according to a statement released by the ministry on Thursday.
The terrorism alert level has been raised from “Attention” to “Alert,” the second-highest classification among South Korea’s four-tier system, indicating a heightened risk of attack, as stated by the foreign ministry.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) of South Korea has also reported indications suggesting that North Korea is preparing to carry out terrorist activities against South Korean diplomatic officers and citizens. However, the specifics of these threats have not been disclosed by the NIS.
According to the NIS, Pyongyang has deployed agents to the aforementioned countries to intensify surveillance of South Korean missions.
Efforts to obtain a response from the North Korean embassy in London regarding these allegations were unsuccessful. North Korea has previously dismissed accusations of terrorism against it as part of US-led efforts to discredit its adversaries.
In light of the heightened threat level, South Korea’s National Counter Terrorism Center convened a meeting on Thursday to discuss measures aimed at safeguarding the diplomatic offices and their personnel.
The recent developments underscore the ongoing tensions between North and South Korea, with historical instances of North Korean involvement in attacks against civilian targets during the Cold War. Notably, North Korea was implicated in bombings at a Seoul airport and the downing of a South Korean airliner in the 1980s.
The United States, in 2017, reinstated North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism following the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, using VX nerve agent at an airport in Malaysia.
